Most Profitable Tree?

 I visit Quora every day and answer a few questions if I have something good to say. Someone asked recently, "What is the most profitable tree to grow?" Susan and I have had quite a bit of experience in growing trees, and we are heating with trees we planted, plus we have had a few timber sales on our ground. Trees that we planted are now sawlog size, and it causes a feeling of wonder to go out and walk through them. Anyhow, here is my answer to that question. It has had more than 50,000 views in a few months, and that is better than any audience I have on this blog!

This question could take a lot of writing, but I will compress it down. Find land with pole-size timber of good quality already established, and buy it for a reasonable price. Timber buyers don’t want it yet, and hunters don’t realize the potential, either. Work with the advice of a forester to thin your timber and turn those poles into sawlogs. Work with your forester to establish advance regeneration before you harvest. This can work if you will. I have seen dedicated landowners turn young white oak timber into valuable logs in 40 years, or about 1/3 of the total rotation. If you want to start from scratch, planting your trees, again, you must talk to your forester and plant trees that will work well on your site. A two layer approach can give you return on your investment if you start at a young enough age. I have seen people plant black walnuts and cottonwood on the same site. The cottonwoods jump up and make logs fast without hurting the walnuts. Harvest the cottonwoods when they are ready, and then continue working with the walnuts to turn them into valuable logs. Black oak and red oak make sawlogs in about 2/3 of the time of white oaks, so they can be used to double-crop your timber land. Talk To Your Forester! Have a good time!